Recording

I think that we're going to start with this one.

Recently, I've been doing most of my performing on the street instead of the stage. There are a number of factors for this, but most of them stem from the fact that Hot Apollo doesn't currently have a drummer. The best way to make these songs work without drums is to base everything around an acoustic guitar, which doesn't really require a venue at all. I've actually come to love the acoustic versions we've been doing lately, though Hot Apollo is still intended to become a full electric band again in the near future, which will necessitate a return to the stage and all of the attendant organisational annoyances. 

But street performance has revealed to me some of its own advantages, and these go beyond the decreased emphasis on planning and forethought. It's a new, different, and fairly efficient way to bring the music out to new people and interact with them in the process. This is old news to anyone who has ever stood with an instrument on a street corner, but I'm thoroughly enjoying the experience and regretting the fact that I've only been able to start recently.

All of this is at the fore of my mind right now primarily because of one meeting that came about through an afternoon of busking in Kensington Market. One of the many pedestrians who presumably enjoyed our music on that day has offered to lend his technological skill and knowledge to the task of making what will undoubtedly be the first truly decent Hot Apollo recordings. I've heard some of the stuff he's done with his own music, and it's pretty great. If you're interested, my personal favourite can be found at http://youtu.be/9lV2-682nOg. 

Anyway, I'm pretty excited, and I intend to put some of the tracks up as they're made. Soon!

Update on Sunday, July 7, 2013 at 11:47PM by Jaymes Buckman

Best bad recording? That "Raw and Live" Sex Pistols album I borrowed from my friend when I was 15. From what I remember, the sound quality was too atrocious to discern anything of detail, but it was my first real introduction to the band, and it had a bunch of Sid's solo stuff that's still inexplicably intriguing to me.

Taste Some Truth

Damn it, Vitaminwater! I can't trust you when you do nonsense like this! Why must people always go and break the scales that they set for themselves? It only serves to make whatever point they're trying to prove seem immediately untrustworthy. 

Just come out and say what you mean, Vitaminwater! Be a man! 

Oh, I know that arguments could be made against me here.

"Oh, but Jaymes!" they'll say. "It's easy for you to be a man, for you already are one, whereas Vitaminwater is really more of a fortified aqueous solution. Check your privilege!"

Well, I can say that my privilege has been thoroughly checked, but the lack of testosterone, genitals, and corporeal form can do nothing to excuse base cowardice of the type so audaciously displayed here by Vitaminwater's craven chicanery. 

Look, Vitaminwater. I'm going to be honest with you here. Honesty is something I can do. I am by nature a weaver of truth. 

Incidentally, I know that truth doesn't really have to be woven, but I just prefer it to the unwoven kind.

Anyway!

Honesty time. Truth hour. Moment of perspicacity. 

Vitaminwater, you must understand that I'm not criticising you for arrogance or anything of the sort. Vanity is my virtue. I know that confidence can be a healthy thing in massive doses. But you've really got to learn to take it to the top, Vitaminwater. Don't hide behind false scales. You're whispering, Vitaminwater. You need to shout. If you're really sure of yourself, be direct about it. 

"Hey! Our drink tastes like eleventy billion, you bastards! Drink the fuck up!"

Is that so hard?

Damn.

Update on Monday, July 1, 2013 at 02:54AM by Jaymes Buckman

Bonus Question!

Best vitamin? C. 

Cereal's Basically Like Sex Anyway

I just realised the implications of the dude's sppon and the lady's bow. Very clever, Sexcereal.

.

I'll readily admit that I have no basis for comparison, though. 

But I keep seeing these advertisements at health shops as I walk around. 

Aphrodisiacs already seem like slightly superfluous products anyway. At best. At worst, they seem downright counterproductive. When is the lack of desire ever a problem? I didn't think that it was common to have a desire for desire. 

It's not too rare for people to have desires that exceed what they can attain. It's not even that uncommon for people to be unable to act upon their desires. One in five? Something like that. That's not that uncommon.

But I don't really know why anyone would want to spoil a lack of desire. A lack of desire can be a great time. That's the time when you can actually do things! 

"Huh. I don't want to have sex today. Now I can finally get around to buying groceries or whatever."

But this thing is even worse because it's specifically designed to be eaten in the morning. That's got to be the worst time for arousal for a lot of people. Did you really just need to be in a loving mood right before work? That doesn't really sound like the wisest plan unless you have some especial desire to spend your lunch break in the bathroom. 

Admittedly, morning obligations and sexual desire are two things with which I have no significant experience, but these seem like pretty safe assumptions to me. 

Update on Monday, June 24, 2013 at 01:43AM by Jaymes Buckman

Bonus Question!

Best cereal? I don't know. Froot Loops? But someone recently gave me some dubious information about the supposed illegality of their ingredients? The kind of information I rarely heed. But Frosted Flakes seem like a safer bet anyway. Raisin Bran's always a great time too.

Roll-Ups Redux

Really, Italpasta? I'd expect more integrity with a name like "Italpasta".

I was walking through town recently when I noticed a smell I haven't encountered in a good while and a half at the least. It was the scent of Fruit Roll-Ups, and I was momentarily startled by the wonderfulness of its intensity. For the first time in years, I was compelled to think deeply on Fruit Roll-Ups. This meditation soon brought me to a conclusion that seemed to be at odds with the heady virtue of the aroma I'd experienced.

Fruit Roll-Ups aren't very good.

I can truthfully say that I have no taste for them, and I doubt that I ever did. I can say this with knowledge of the erstwhile love I had for foods that I now dislike. But Fruit Roll-Ups are a different issue. I never liked them, yet I know that I once enjoyed them.

And it comes back to that smell. In my recent encounter with it, I was stricken with no hint of desire to consume its apparent originator, though it was obviously powerful enough to provoke this contemplation. However, the smell did briefly instill in me a vague wish for intimate associations with Fruit Roll-Ups. It made me want to rub my face in them. It made me want to wash my hands in them and wrap myself in them until my skin was sticky with their saccharine scent. 

And I realised that these were not new desires. This was why I had enjoyed the candy in my youth despite its uninteresting flavour. The smell had always filled me with these instincts and more, but their obvious impracticality had led me to simply eat the confection instead. When that action became an inadequate substitute, the candy left my life. 

Update on Sunday, June 16, 2013 at 10:33PM by Jaymes Buckman

Bonus Question!

Gushers are still good, though, aren't they? I'd assume so. Yes.

Sidhe-La Was a Banshee

I saw the advertisement for “World War Z” recently, and it looks like a fairly worthwhile film to me. That’s almost definitely old news, and the fact that it’s not really closely related to the book at all might just be slightly less old. But that’s alright, for it still looks like a decent story in its own right, and the original author seems to share that opinion.

There are a lot of worse adaptations out in the world, and some of those actually seem to lend credence to the occasionally hyperbolic lamentations of the creators of the original works. These are generally the ones that take enough from the original to seem credible and do everything else badly. I can see how that can hurt a work’s reputation, and I can understand creators when they say that being involved in the creation of an adaptation is like watching the dismemberment of one’s own child. But I’m inclined to think that the number of situations in which that common analogy is actually a fair one is probably a relatively low one. In a lot of cases, these adaptations don’t involve the murder of a child. The producers aren’t killers. The author’s child isn’t being harmed at all. Instead, the child is an object of envy to the producers. He’s the youth who wins all the football trophies and gets on the honour roll. The producers look at their own offspring, who is plainly a cretinous, slovenly mess, and decide to name him after the golden child. The sanctity of the author’s family is maintained. Meanwhile, the producers, displeased by the futility of their efforts to mould their own son into a reasonable imitation of the author’s, decide to engage in some twisted form of sympathetic magic by throwing money at the author in the hope that it will aid the daft endeavour in which they tenaciously persist.

I seem to recall some momentary tinge of sympathy that I once felt for Anne Rice and others in her situation upon hearing bits of her odyssey with the Tom Cruise vehicle “Interview with the Vampire”. Apparently, she was initially resistant to a number of elements of the adaptation, and the supposed impropriety of the star was foremost among these. Even I’ll admit that I was somewhat bemused when I first saw Tom in that blond hair, and I actually like the film. Actually, I just watched it again a few days ago.

But that’s obviously beside the point.

Anyway, Rice later said that she changed her mind after seeing the film, which apparently convinced her that Cruise was indeed capable of channelling the paler, more cannibalistic version of her husband. That made sense to me. After all, the dude’s a charming actor. But then I was told that she clearly must have been compelled to say that by movie executives with concerns over the potential impact of a negative review by their film’s originator.

And that seemed like a sad thought. An image of a woman in the process of being forced into submission by guys in suits and sunglasses in a dim room.

But I eventually came to realise that the tool of those guys in suits was money. That’s obviously another bit of old news. Anyway, it put a happier note on things.

Update on Monday, June 10, 2013 at 12:07AM by Jaymes Buckman

Bonus Question!

Favourite bad adaptation? "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen". 

Update on Monday, June 10, 2013 at 12:11AM by Jaymes Buckman

Actually, anything by Alan Moore could probably come close to qualifying. They're pretty good movies, but they're terrible at being faithful. I could probably give an exception to "Watchmen" on the part about being faithful, and I suppose that I can give an exception to "Constantine" on the part about being good.